• The mandatory harassment prevention training for employees and supervisors can be purchased on the CalChamber Store .

Training must take place within six months of hire or promotion and every two years thereafter. Seasonal and temporary employees or employees hired to work less than 6 months, must be trained within 30 calendar days after hire or within 100 hours worked, whichever is earlier.

The harassment prevention training must include information and practical guidance about federal and state harassment laws, including harassment prevention and correction and remedies that are available to victims. The training must also include a component on the prevention of “abusive conduct,” as well as a component on harassment based on gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation. For more information, see “Content and Subjects Covered” on this page.

The training must be interactive. Computer-based training that is provided by qualified organizations, such as CalChamber, and that includes interactive components, meets the requirements. However, the law not only permits an employer to develop its own compliant course but also requires the Civil Rights Department (CRD) to develop an online course.

An employer with a multi-lingual workforce should take additional steps to make sure the training is clearly and effectively communicated to employees who speak a language other than English. An employer should make sure to translate policies and communicate them in the languages spoken by its workforce. For more information, see “Harassment Prevention Policies” in Effective Harassment Prevention.

Meeting the harassment training requirements does not necessarily provide a defense to a harassment lawsuit. Failing to meet the harassment training requirements does not necessarily establish employer liability for harassing behavior under the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA).

This topic contains the following information:

• Coverage
• Tracking Harassment Training
• Duration of Training
• Types of Harassment Training
• Harassment Training Documentation and Records Requirements
• Trainer Qualifications
• Content and Subjects Covered

Coverage

California’s training law applies to employers with five or more employees, which includes part-time and temporary employees, including those who are hired through temporary staffing agencies, and independent contractors. The California Civil Rights Department (CRD), formerly DFEH, regulations clarify that this also includes employees outside the state. There is no requirement that the five employees or contractors work at the same location or all work or reside in California.2

You must provide one hour of training to all nonsupervisory employees located in California and two hours of training to employees with supervisory authority. “Supervisory authority” generally includes anyone possessing the authority to exercise independent judgment to:3

• Hire, transfer, suspend, lay off, recall, promote, discharge, assign, reward or discipline other employees
• Direct other employees’ work or adjust their grievances
• Effectively recommend any of these actions

Employees who make recommendations to managers about such matters must receive supervisory training if those recommendations are likely to result in managers taking employment actions.

While the law doesn’t require you to do so, as a best practice, you should train out-of-state supervisors and employees who interact with California employees so they will be aware of what California law requires regarding harassment in the workplace.

Tracking Harassment Training

The CRD regulations address the tracking of harassment training. They permit employers to use individual tracking or training year tracking, or a combination of both:

Individual Tracking: You can track your training requirement for each employee on an individual calendaring basis. You measure two years from the date the employee last completed training.

Example: An employer hired a new supervisor on April 15, 2024. The supervisor received harassment prevention training on September 22, 2024 — meeting the training requirement of “within six months of hire or promotion.” That supervisor must be retrained by September 21, 2026, to satisfy the “every two years” requirement.

Training Year Tracking: You can designate a “training year” in which you train your employees. You must retrain all employees every two years by the end of the designated training year, even those newly hired or promoted employees that received training in the prior year.

You may not need to retrain newly hired employees who received harassment training from their previous employers within the prior two years. The regulations allow employers to accept an employee’s previous training as valid and to put that employee on a two-year tracking schedule based on that individual’s prior training date.

However, the new employer must prove that the prior training was sufficient and meets the legal requirements of the mandatory training law. In addition, the employee must read and acknowledge receiving the current employer’s anti-harassment policy within six months of being hired or promoted.4

Duration of Training

The required duration of training is one hour for nonsupervisory employees and two hours for supervisors. 5

The law expressly states that the training may be completed in shorter segments as long as the applicable hourly total requirement is met.

The regulations specify, that for classroom training or webinars, the minimum duration of a training segment could not be less than 30 minutes. E-learning courses may include bookmarking features that allow a trainee to pause the training, as long as the actual program is two hours.

Types of Harassment Training

California’s training mandate requires employers to provide classroom or other effective interactive training and education. The training may be completed by employees individually or as part of a group presentation.

“Effective interactive training and education,” are defined in the regulations to include any of the following:6

Classroom training: Also referred to as in-person training, classroom training features content that was created by a trainer. The supervisors receive the training from a trainer in a setting that is removed from the supervisor’s daily duties. California law specifically defines the credentials that a qualified trainer must possess, described in “Trainer Qualifications” below.

E-learning: Individualized, interactive and computer-based training that was created by a trainer and an instructional designer. Supervisors must have the opportunity to ask a trainer questions and receive a response within two business days after asking the questions.

Webinar: An Internet-based seminar that features content that is created and taught by a trainer and that is transmitted over the Internet or an intranet in real time. Employers who use a webinar for training must document that each supervisor who is not physically present in the same room as the trainer actually attended the training. Further, they must document that the supervisor actively participated in the training’s interactive content, discussion questions, hypothetical scenarios, polls, quizzes or tests and activities. Webinars must provide supervisors with the opportunity to ask questions and receive answers to those questions or otherwise seek guidance and assistance.

The regulations also authorize other effective, interactive training — including audio, video or other computer technology — but only if used along with, and as a supplement to, classroom, webinar or e-learning training.

Harassment Training Documentation and Records Requirements

Employers are required to track compliance and keep documentation for a minimum of two years. You must be able to provide copies upon request.7

The law requires CRD to provide a method for employees to save and print a certificate of completion if the employer utilizes the training course that must be produced by CRD. At time of publication, the regulations required that the training record must include all of the following minimum information:

• The name of the supervisor trained;
• The training date;
• The sign-in sheet;
• A copy of all certificates of attendance or completion issued;
• The training type;
• A copy of all written or recorded materials that comprise the training; and
• The training provider’s name.

In addition to the above requirements, specific documentation requirements for both trainers and employers are mandated by the regulations for e-learning and webinar training:

• E-Learning: The trainer must maintain all written questions received and all written responses or guidance provided for a period of two years after the date of the response.
• Webinars: The employer must maintain a copy of the webinar, all written materials used by the trainer and all written questions submitted during the webinar. The employer must also document all written responses or guidance the trainer provided during the webinar.

Trainer Qualifications

CRD regulations also contain specific trainer qualifications. The trainer must be one of the following:

• An attorney who has been admitted for two or more years to the bar of any U.S. state and whose practice includes employment law under FEHA and/or Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964.
• A human resources professional or harassment prevention consultant who has a minimum of two years of practical experience in designing or conducting discrimination, retaliation and harassment prevention training; responding to harassment complaints or other discrimination complaints; conducting investigations of harassment complaints; or advising employers or employees regarding discrimination, retaliation and harassment prevention.
• A professor or instructor at a law school, college or university who has a post-graduate degree or California teaching credential and 20 instruction hours or two or more years of experience teaching employment law under FEHA and/or Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Additional mandatory qualifications for the trainer under the regulations include knowledge of and ability to train on the following topics:8

• How to identify behavior that may constitute unlawful harassment, discrimination, and/or retaliation under both California and federal law
• What steps to take when harassing behavior occurs in the workplace
• How to report harassment complaints
• Supervisors’ obligation to report harassing, discriminatory or retaliatory behavior when they become aware of it
• How to respond to a harassment complaint
• An employer’s obligation to conduct a workplace investigation of a harassment complaint
• What constitutes retaliation and how to prevent it
• The essential components of an anti-harassment policy
• The effect of harassment on harassed employees, coworkers, harassers and employers
• Harassment based on gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation

Content and Subjects Covered

To satisfy the mandatory training requirements, the training must include information and practical guidance regarding the federal and state statutory provisions concerning the prohibition against and the prevention and correction of harassment, and the remedies available to victims of harassment in employment.

The learning objectives of the training are to:9

• Assist California employers in changing or modifying workplace behaviors that create or contribute to harassment based on “sex,” “gender identity,” “gender expression,” and “sexual orientation” as those terms are defined in California and federal law;
• Provide trainees with information related to the negative effects of abusive conduct in the workplace; and
• Develop, foster and encourage a set of values in employees who complete mandated training that will assist them in preventing and effectively responding to incidents of harassment, as well as implementing procedures that promptly address and correct wrongful behavior.

A training course must cover at least all of the following required content:10

• A definition of unlawful harassment under California and federal law, other forms of harassment, and how harassment can cover more than one basis.
• FEHA and Title VII statutory provisions and case law concerning the prohibition against and the prevention of unlawful harassment, discrimination and retaliation in employment.
• The types of conduct that constitute harassment.
• The remedies available to harassed victims in civil actions, as well as potential employer and individual exposure/liability.
• Supervisors’ obligation to report harassment, discrimination and retaliation when they become aware of it.
• Practical examples that illustrate harassment, discrimination and retaliation, such as scenarios from cases, news/media accounts, hypotheticals based on workplace situations and other sources. Examples can be demonstrated through training modalities such as role plays, cases studies and group discussions.
• The limited confidentiality of the complaint process.
• Strategies to prevent harassment in the workplace.
• Resources for victims of unlawful harassment, such as to whom they should report any alleged sexual harassment.
• The steps necessary to take appropriate remedial measures to correct harassing behavior, which includes the employer’s obligation to conduct an effective workplace investigation of a harassment complaint.
• What the supervisor should do if personally accused of harassment.
• The essential elements of an anti-harassment policy and how to utilize it if a harassment complaint is filed. Provide each supervisor with a copy of the policy and require them to read and acknowledge receipt.
• A review of the definition of abusive conduct.11
• Training on harassment based on gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation, including practical examples discussing these types of harassment.12

Training on the Prevention of Abusive Conduct

The harassment prevention training laws require a component on prevention of “abusive conduct” (sometimes referred to as bullying).13

Under the current regulations, no specific amount of time or ratio of the training needs to be dedicated to the prevention of abusive conduct, but it must be covered in a “meaningful manner.”

The abusive conduct component must:

• Specifically discuss the elements/definition of abusive conduct, which is defined as conduct of an employer or employee that:
• Is undertaken with malice;
• A reasonable person would find hostile or offensive; and
• Is unrelated to an employer’s legitimate business interests (including performance standards).
• Discuss the statutory examples of abusive conduct that may include:
• Repeated infliction of verbal abuse, such as the use of derogatory remarks, insults and epithets;
• Verbal or physical conduct that a reasonable person would find threatening, intimidating or humiliating; or
• The gratuitous sabotage or undermining of a person’s work performance.
• Emphasize that a single act does not constitute abusive conduct, unless especially severe and egregious.
• Explain the negative effects that abusive conduct has on the victim of the conduct as well as others in the workplace.
• Include information about the detrimental consequences of this conduct on employers (including a reduction in productivity and morale).

Despite the requirement to train on abusive conduct, no law allows an employee to sue specifically for abusive conduct (bullying) in the workplace. Only when conduct rises to the point of harassment or discrimination does conduct become unlawful, e.g., when the conduct is directed towards a FEHA protected class of employees, such as only women or men, those over 40 years of age, or workers of a particular national origin; or is in the form of unwelcome comments or conduct creating a hostile work environment.

Abusive conduct is addressed in training because abusive conduct/bullying can have many of the same negative effects of harassment and should be addressed in the workplace through an employer’s workplace behavior policy. It’s important to address it early because abusive conduct may lead to harassment, if the behavior is allowed to continue.

Interactive Training Required

The training and education must also include practical examples aimed at instructing supervisors in the prevention of harassment, discrimination, and retaliation, and must be presented by trainers or educators with knowledge and expertise in those topics.

The law also requires that the training be interactive. The training and education must include questions that assess learning, skill-building activities that assess the trainee’s application and understanding of the content and hypotheticals about harassment — each with one or more discussion questions so supervisors remain engaged with the training.

Examples include:

• Quizzes
• Tests
• Small group discussion questions
• Discussion questions accompanying hypothetical scenarios
• Use of scenarios discussed by small groups or the entire group
• Other learning activity geared toward ensuring interactive participation and the ability to apply what is learned

• The new training requirement for employers with five or more employees also requires interactivity. Please consult with legal counsel if you have any questions about whether your training meets this requirement.

1. Govt. Code sec. 12950.1